


Rubble and Soot

by penned_by_ken



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: (probably), (we'll get there) - Freeform, (what about fundy or eret or jschlatt you ask?), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dadza, Gen, Good Older Sibling Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Good Older Sibling Wilbur Soot, Good Sibling Wilbur Soot, Older Sibling Wilbur Soot, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Phil Being A Dad, Phoenix!wilbur, Protective Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Recovery, Resurrected Wilbur Soot, STAT, Sickfic, Sleepy Bois Inc Angst, Sleepy Bois Inc as Family, Tags Are Fun, Tags May Change, These boys need therapy, Wilbur Soot Angst, Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings, Winged Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Winged Wilbur Soot, Winged!AU, and tommyinnit...being Tommyinnit, god!dream, hell yeah, in general, look he's trying his best, or admin powers or whatever, sleep boys inc - Freeform, sleepy bois inc - Freeform, specifically, subpar parent Wilbur soot, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29193546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penned_by_ken/pseuds/penned_by_ken
Summary: “And there from rubble, there emerged L’Manberg-My L’manberg, my L’manberg…My L’manberg, my L’manberg.”ORWilbur Soot lives up to his name and rises from the ashes.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Wilbur Soot, Floris | Fundy & Wilbur Soot, Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 7
Kudos: 141





	Rubble and Soot

**Author's Note:**

> so this was born out of me, having a three am thought, going Wilbur SOOT, amiright?

When Wilbur finally hears the echoes of his father’s voice, despite the creeping anxiety and stuttering of his own, despite the warnings and anticipation and destruction and _desperation-_

He’s still taken aback when he sees Philza in the doorway of the control room.

Phil- _he-_ he never seemed to change, not really, and even now, with Wilbur’s faint wisps of memory of warm eyes and a curtain of soft blond, they align in a near perfect click with stands in the doorway. Philza then, Philza now, unchanging like hearthstone, a realization that felt like it should be fact, an epiphany.

(Wilbur remembers how he lost the words and the will; he could paint pictures and start nations with his words, but when Tommy asked, he couldn’t describe their father’s face, he couldn’t remember what he looked like-

But now, now, now, Philza has the audacity to insert himself like he never left, smile the same way he did, as if it hadn’t been _four goddamn years-_ )

Wilbur had forgotten how Philza’s wings looked.

They were a soft grey-to black, near-white at the crests of bone and midnight by the wingtips. Vaguely, vaguely, he remembers how soft they were, a gentle cradle during 4am nightmares and kid-like fears; he remembers them wrapping around his shoulders in a soft brush, and how Phil’s hair would drape down, and all he could see-

_All he could see-_

Philza’s hand is warm on his head, and Wilbur’s hates how he almost preens into the touch, and unwittingly gives a little chuckle and Phil’s smiling eyes. “Phil-”

The wings loom in the back, casting a ray of shadow through the light of the hall, they are big, and grand, and dark, like the blackstone of the control room, like the midnights of being afraid, of flinching at noises, of a childhood long removed. Wilbur wills himself to not be afraid.

It feels like home, the familiar settling of grief, of sadness, or betrayal. It feels like every reassurance Eret gave, now swathed in the memories of betrayal, like every smile he and Shclatt shared being the presidency. It feels like an empty home, with hollow wood halls and silence where the chatter used to be overwhelming.

“Phil, there was a saying,” Wilbur says, eyes rising to meet the light warmth of Philza’s.

“A saying from a traitor- did you know Eret? No longer a part of L’manberg.”

_L’manberg, oh L’manberg, you quiet city upon a hill, incarcerated by its own flames. Oh L’manberg, home so empty and cruel and quiet. Oh L’manberg, you special place-_

“He had a saying-” Wil looks up, really looks up, and memorizes how Phil’s eyes look, every crescent and gleam of brown around the pit black of the iris, every streak and speck of color, yellows and reds and oranges, burning like a hearth. 

_(And he thinks about how his own must look, wide and battered and ashen, tired. Wilbur feels so tired, and he knows as his hand settles on the button, that he is, in some way, wrong. Broken.)_

He doesn’t deserve the warmth in Philza’s eyes, but like the greedy man he is, he relishes in that warmth of just a moment longer. God knows it might be the last time he sees it.

“It was never meant to be.”

The world goes white.

Wilbur thinks there is something beautiful in the way the dust hangs in the sunlight, weaving and swaying through the skeleton of the destroyed building. It is beautiful, the drum beats of TNT and the wheezing of fireworks, and the off-in-the-distance thumps of arrows on shields. Even in its final hours, L’manberg is a song, it's melody of chatter shredded into a climax of screams, and now, silence. A single bated breath.

He takes the inhale, tasting the ash on his tongue and freedom on his lips.

“ _My_ L’manberg, Phil! My great unfinished symphony, forever unfinished!”

The world stops, and he can see Tommy and Tubbo, shields raised, fighting. He can see the fraying leaves of the L’manberg trees, he can see the pavement and waterways reduced to cobble. He can feel the drumbeat in his ears, the roaring crescendo and fall of brass and iron and wood. And like a great conductor, Wil can reach out his hands and hold it all in his palms.

Wil poured his life, his soul, into this place. He wrote this great symphony, and he _will fall with it._

“If I can’t have this, _no one can.”_

Wil can’t feel his arms, and can hardly hear anything but the ringing from the explosion, and no one, no one, can ever have L’manberg again. No one will touch him, and he will be safe, forever out of their reach.

When he gives Philza the iron sword, he can feel every pulse in his veins, every push and pull, he yells even though his voice is hoarse, he moves even though his body is sore. He is tired, yet at the same time, alight. This is his final symphony. His last song.

And even though, even though, an act out of the sheet music, Phil is here, eyes warm and ablaze with something Wil, for all his poeticism, can’t name. It makes him happy, in a sorrowful way. “No matter what you do-”

That’s right. Wil can trust Phil with this.

There are the final drum beats on the shut door, and Phil finally moves in tandem with Wil.

He feels the iron in his chest, cold where the warmth of blood seeps through, cold where the wings, the wings fold onto him like a child. Out of the side of his eye, he can see the lighted blond and soft white of Phil’s hair and wings, cast in the glow of the now-exposed sky. He doesn’t have the strength to look up, or do much of anything for that matter. He doesn’t kick or scream or wail when he cries, instead they are small droplets of warmth streaming down his ashen cheeks. That, too, is a feeling Wilbur’s losing. Still, still, still, there is a warmth on his back and a voice in his ear, and even as Wilbur’s legs and arm lose feeling, as his lungs fill with ash and cold iron, the hot-sadness of Philza’s warm eyes keeps Wil there. Under the cradle of wing-cover and the shade of Phil’s long hair, under the sorrowful gaze of his father, Wilbur let’s himself rest.

**Author's Note:**

> oops did I kill him already
> 
> this fic is also a practice for me to stop planning so hard, and actually WRITE, you know? I love analysis but at times that means I never actually write...just plot bunnies in my head. So, we'll see where this goes. See you then


End file.
